Since nothing has really gone on with Mickey & Bill prior to DAYS's premiere in 1965 (other than Mickey is an attorney and Bill is in Harvard Medical School according to Zenka's book), we'll move on to Marie who is a graduate student in biochemistry at Salem University and engaged to marry Horton nextdoor neighbor Tony Merritt. Dick Colla (Tony #1, 1965-1966) was born in 1936 (IMDB & Jason's). Don Briscoe (Tony #2, 1966) was born in 1940 (Wiki, IMDB, & Jason's). Ron Husmann (Tony #3, 1966-1967) was born 1937 (Wiki, IMDB, & Jason's). At the beginning of DAYS it is established that Tony is looking forward to a teaching fellowship in Boston. Tony would be at least Marie's age (b.1942) and at oldest, I'd guess late 20s (b.1936). For further clues to Tony's age, let's look at his father, airline pilot & widower Craig Merritt. David McLean (Craig #1, 1965-1967) was born in 1922 (Wiki, IMDB, & Jason's),making him 43 when Days premiered and 14 years older than Tony #1 & 18 years older than Tony #2. Harry Lauter (Craig #2, 1966) was born in 1914 (Wiki, IMDB, & Jason's) making the actor 8 years older than Craig #1. To be honest, in regards to Tony & Craig, we're just going to have to guess. lol I say, for the hell of it, we put Tony's birth year as 1938 (splitting the difference between all 3 Tonys) and Craig 20 years older with a birth year of 1918 (incidently, smack in the middle of the ages of both Craigs). It really doesn't mean much right now and Tony & Craig are both gone by 1967, but it's important for Marie's early story.

The only remaining important character introduced in 1965 is Diane Hunter, Mickey's girlfriend. Diane is established as being divorced with a teen-aged daughter named Susan. Susan is Julie's best friend at school and is presumed to be the same age (which means that Susan was born in 1949). Although Susan wasn't introduced until 1966, we'll go ahead and deal with her here. Denise Alexander (Susan #1, 1966-1973) was born in either 1939 (Wiki & IMDB) or 1944 (Jason's). Either way, she was playing younger if she's the same age as Julie. Bennye Gatteys (Susan #2, 1973-1976) was born in 1940 (Jason's). Either way, I don't think we can get away with saying that Susan was born in any other year than 1949. However, we might be able to push her birth year back to 1948 considering that Susan married David Martin (a character we'll deal with later) in 1966. Jane Kean (Diane #1, 1965-1966) was born in either 1923 (Jason's) or 1924 (Wiki & IMDB). Coleen Gray (Diane #2, 1966-1967) was born in 1922 (Wiki, IMDB, & Jason's). This means that Mickey was dating a *much* older woman. Considering that Susan #1 was obvious playing younger, we can presume that Diane #1 was playing younger as well and I would guess that Diane was around Ben & Addie's age. This would put her birth roughly 1931. This would make Diane 2 years older than Mickey. Personally, I think the gap is more obvious than that. I think Diane is actually about the same age as Ben, putting her birth year at 1927. When Diane is introduced, she is already divorced from Susan's father Richard Hunter. Terry O'Sullivan (who played Richard from 1966-1968) was born 1915 (Wiki, IMDB, & Jason's). For anyone who cares about such things, O'Sullivan is probably best known for his decade long run as Arthur Tate (Joanne's husband) on 'Search for Tomorrow'. Anyway, Richard was already 50ish when he was introduced (much older than the rest of the characters), so we really can't garner any good pin point for Diane's age. So, for the hell of it, let's say Susan was born in 1948, Diane was born in 1927, and Richard (being signifcantly older) was born in 1920. This gives our premiere list of characters (keeping in mind that Bill came on in 1965, but after the premiere and both Susan & Richard didn't start until 1966) as follows, setting as FACT (at least for our purposes)...

And that brings us up to the November 8, 1965 premier. Starting with my next installment, we start building upon this foundation with actual on-air events. As I said before, the 1st 5 years are easy. It's not until poor young Mike Horton starts getting SORASed that things start to go wonky for the Salem Time Line.